Betty Pharr was working for Joe Jones the summer she made her debut in the Whitney Building downtown. Frank “Jiggie” Moran, who was a lawyer, worked in the same building when a mutual friend introduced them. They dated on-and-off for two years, and Jiggie asked Betty to marry him one night at the ever-popular Bruno’s Bar on Maple Street. Of course she said yes, and the wedding planning began.
Betty and her mother decided on a 6 p.m. wedding at Holy Name of Jesus Church on St. Charles Avenue with the Rev. William J. Harty performing the ceremony. Rohm’s Florist created the flowers for both the church and the reception. Two vases of white chrysanthemums and evergreens flanked the doorway and continued to the altar. The reception was held at the home of Betty’s great aunt, Mrs. Hamilton Polk Jones, on Coliseum Street in the Garden District. Vases of ivory roses, chrysanthemums, maidenhair fern and smilax decorated every room, and the bride chose one cabbage rose for her bouquet. The bridesmaids’ bouquets were grapes accented with croton leaves and greenery from the garden.
Betty designed her dress as well as the bridesmaids’ dresses with the help of Mrs. Evans at Town & Country. The bride’s dress was champagne-colored heavy silk, and her four-tiered veil was created out of illusion attached to a small cap accented with tiny seed pearls. The bridesmaids’ dresses were café-au-lait-colored satin, and each girl had small a green veil accented with green leaves on her head.
After the wedding, Betty and Jiggie drove to Miami, with stops along the way starting with the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Bilouxi; after Miami, they finally went on a fabulous trip to Cuba.
Bridesmaids: (front row) Katherine Gage, Jane Pharr and Judy Guidry; (back row) Mary Craig, Phyllis Emling, Helen Land, Mrs. Harland Hundley and Eugenie Jones.
Groomsmen: Malcolm Stouse, Peter Vandenburg (back), Frank Moran, Billy Rirge, Paul Thriffley (back), Jiggie Moran, Jimmy Manson, Tony Vizard, Edmund Valles and John Pharr
